Sophie's World

by Jostein Gaarder

He believed that our senses give us an incorrect picture of the world, a picture that does not tally with our reason.

A rationalist is someone who believes that human reason is the primary source of our knowledge of the world.

Both good and bad have their inevitable place in the order of things, Heraclitus believed. Without this constant interplay of opposites the world would cease to exist.

A “philosopher” really means “one who loves wisdom.”

A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.

Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.

All our senses are based in the body and are consequently unreliable. But we also have an immortal soul—and this soul is the realm of reason. And not being physical, the soul can survey the world of ideas.

Reason belongs to the head, will belongs to the chest, and appetite belongs to the abdomen.

Only when the three parts of the body function together as a unity do we get a harmonious or “virtuous” individual.

Aristotle held that there are three forms of happiness. The first form of happiness is a life of pleasure and enjoyment. The second form of happiness is a life as a free and responsible citizen. The third form of happiness is a life as thinker and philosopher.

a person who only develops his body lives a life that is just as unbalanced as someone who only uses his head. Both extremes are an expression of a warped way of life.

thought that right and wrong is something mainly determined by the environment the individual grows up in. Socrates, on the other hand, believed that conscience is the same for everyone.

Common sense and conscience can both be compared to a muscle. If you don’t use a muscle, it gets weaker and weaker.”

They were concerned with ethics. In the new civilization, this became the central philosophical project.

“Death does not concern us,” Epicurus said quite simply, “because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.”

In contrast to the great religions of the Orient, the three Western religions emphasize that there is a distance between God and His creation.

going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way

medieval philosophers took it almost for granted that Christianity was true,” he began.

according to the Stoics, there was no sharp division between good and evil.

“Socrates said that we all had the same chances because we all had the same common sense. But St. Augustine divides people into two groups.

Aquinas believed that there are two paths to God. One path goes through faith and the Christian Revelation, and the other goes through reason and the senses.

going only part of the way is not the same as going the wrong way.

We can recognize that there is a God just by walking around in the natural world. We can easily see that He loves flowers and animals, otherwise He would not have made them. But information about God, the person, is only found in the Bible—or in God’s ‘autobiography,’ if you like.”

More people now emphasized that we cannot reach God through rationalism because God is in all ways unknowable.

‘Horses are born,’ it was said, ‘but human beings are not born—they are formed.’” “Do we have to be educated to be human beings?” “Yes, that was the thought.

‘Once I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I no longer know whether I am Chuang-tzu, who dreamed I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang-tzu.’”

some philosophers believed that what exists is at bottom spiritual in nature. This standpoint is called idealism. The opposite viewpoint is called materialism.

everything that happens is predetermined. ‘It’s written in the stars’ that something will happen. This view is called determinism.”

The brain surgeon was a Christian but the astronaut was not. The astronaut said, ‘I’ve been out in space many times but I’ve never seen God or angels.’ And the brain surgeon said, ‘And I’ve operated on many clever brains but I’ve never seen a single thought.’”

When he doubted, he had to be thinking, and because he was thinking, it had to be certain that he was a thinking being. Or, as he himself expressed it: ‘Cogito, ergo sum.’” “Which means?” “I think, therefore I am.”

Only God or nature is the expression of such a free and ‘nonaccidental’ process. Man can strive for freedom in order to live without outer constraint, but he will never achieve ‘free will.’

philosophers held that we have absolutely nothing in the mind that we have not experienced through the senses. A view such as this is called empiricism.”

he felt ‘an insurmountable resistance to everything but philosophy and learning.’

“Hume begins by establishing that man has two different types of perceptions, namely impressions and ideas.

Each element was once sensed, and entered the theater of the mind in the form of a real ‘impression.’ Nothing is ever actually invented by the mind. The mind puts things together and constructs false ‘ideas.’”

The child perceives the world as it is, without putting more into things than he experiences.”

“And although I have seen nothing but black crows in my life, it doesn’t mean that there’s no such thing as a white crow.

“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.”